With the advent of sheet sections of walling, craftsmen skilled in applying a perfectly even wall of plaster needed to transform their skills to keep up with technology. Sheet rock or dry wall has successfully replaced the entirely plastered wall and forced carpenters to lay down their plaster troughs and spreaders in exchange for cordless drywall screw guns.
Hanging sheet rock or drywall on a vertical surface is a relatively simple task. A four by eight foot sheet is butted against adjacent foundations and secured to wood or metal framing with screws. The only patch work required is to cover the countersunk screws and the seams between adjacent pieces. The rest of the four by eight sheet is manufactured flat and requires no additional work besides the standard two coats of paint.
While drywall has been a triumphant replacement for plastering walls, it has several very serious shortcomings when used on ceilings. Specifically, the sheets are very large, awkward and heavy, making it impossible for one person to hang a sheet on the ceiling and next to impossible for two people. This problem directly relates to the cost of the job as a second workman is needed solely to support the sheet against the ceiling, assuming the sheet makes it to the ceiling without damaging the material. Several inventions have obtained patents to assist a carpenter in hanging drywall on ceiling joists without human support.
One of the first types of devices designed to assist in hanging drywall on the ceiling is known commonly as a dead man's support. This type of support extends from the floor to the ceiling temporarily forcing the drywall flat against the ceiling until it can be permanently fastened. A patent on a device such as this was issued to Molloy in U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,844 in 1988 and again on an improvement, U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,916, in 1990.
This type of device does little to alleviate the need for a second worker though. A sheet of drywall must be placed flat against the ceiling before the device will support it fully. While eliminating the need to manually hold the sheet while permanently attaching it, this device almost requires a third person as the sheet must be properly positioned while the device is being operated. Furthermore, use of this device on vaulted or cathedral ceilings becomes almost more trouble and time consuming to set up than would having three or four workers manually hold the sheets flat against the joists.
Several devices have been devised to assist in temporarily attaching sheets of material to high or angled ceilings. Additionally, these devices allow for a temporary support of the material without the use of the floor for support. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,366,329, issued to Burgess, and 5,249,405, issued to Miller, are illustrative of typical devices in the art which do not use floor support. These two and other devices of this type attach temporarily to the ceiling and have some sort of shelving means which the sheet of drywall rests upon. Once the sheet is permanently attached, the temporary support device is removed and used on the next sheet.
This method is only a slight improvement over the dead man's support as a sheet of drywall needs to be placed in position first, manually, while the support devices attaching at least one end of the sheet are secured. Furthermore, some of these devices, such as in Miller, require more than two individual devices to support a single sheet of drywall. In this case, the devices hardly improve the manual method of attaching sheets to the ceiling as permanent attachment will only require minimal additional effort to that of attaching four temporary supports.
What is needed is a new and novel apparatus for hanging sheets of drywall on the ceiling which can be attached first to the ceiling without the drywall, have the drywall inserted within it, and then have the apparatus lift and support the drywall against the ceiling until it is permanently attached. The present invention fulfills this and other needs.